Calpurnius: Yes. For every one of us, the camp on the empty hill-top
there is Rome, and all Rome's in the trumpet call.
Gleva: Is the sound so strange and moving?
Calpurnius: Yes. Most strange, most moving. For I know that at this
actual minute every Roman soldier on guard throughout the world has
the sound of it in his ears, here in the forest of Anderida, far away
on some fortress wall in Syria. (_Throws off his seriousness._) But I
am talking of sacred things, and that one should be shy to do. Come,
Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb
again.
Gleva: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the
foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen.
Calpurnius: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon
a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as
you.
Gleva: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory
of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome.
[_He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men
marching._]
That speaks louder than the trumpets.
[_He is very still._]
Calpurnius! (_She sits by him, and puts an arm about his shoulder. She
speaks his name as if she were afraid._) The Romans flee from Britain.
Calpurnius (_with a start of contempt_): Madness! It's one legion
going home. Another, with its rest still to earn, will take its place.
Gleva: Which legion goes?
Calpurnius: How should I know? (_A pause._) The Valeria Victrix.
Gleva: Yours! (_She starts away from him._) Calpurnius, yours!
Calpurnius: Yes, mine. My legion goes to Rome. (_His voice thrills
with eagerness. He has been troubled through the scene how he shall
break the news. Now it is out, he cannot conceal his joy._)
Gleva: But you--you stay behind.
Calpurnius (_gently_): This is our last night together. Let us not
waste it. Never was there a night so made for love. (_He draws her
towards him._)
Gleva: You go with your legion?
Calpurnius: Before the dawn.
Gleva: It's impossible. No. You'll stay behind.
Calpurnius: No.
Gleva: Listen to me. You shall be King with me.
Calpurnius (_in a burst of contempt_): King here! In the forests of
Britain! I!
Gleva: Yes. You'll lie quiet here. I by your side. Your hand in mine.
See! We'll forget the hours. The dawn will come.
Calpurnius: And find me a traitor!
Gleva: I am already one. There was a servant with me. He told me I was
like a dog that leaves its own people to follow the marching men.
Calpurnius (_sits up_): And you let him live, with this knife ready in
your girdle?
Gleva: He spoke the truth.
Calpurnius: The truth! (_Contemptuously._) There's a word for you!
Child! There's a greater thing in the world than truth. Truth wins no
battles.
Gleva: What's this greater thing?
Calpurnius: Discipline! You should have struck.
Gleva: I wish I had. For he might have struck back.
Calpurnius: Discipline! So I go with my legion.
Gleva (_with a cry accusingly_): You want to go.
Calpurnius (_springs up_): By all the gods I do. For ten years I have
toiled in Britain building roads--roads--roads--till I'm sick of them.
First the pounded earth, then the small stones, next the rubble, then
the concrete, and last of all the pavement; here in Anderida, there
across the swamps to Londinium, northwards through the fens to
Eboracum--ten years of it. And now--Rome--the mother of me!
Gleva: Rome? (_She speaks despairingly. Calpurnius has forgotten her:
he answers her voice, not her._)
Calpurnius: Just for a little while. Oh, I shall go out again, but
just for a little while--to rise when I want to, not at the trumpet's
call, the house all quiet till I clap my hands--to have one's mornings
free--to saunter through the streets, picking up the last new thing of
Juvenal in the Argiletum, or some fine piece of Corinthian bronze in
the Campus Martius, and stopping on the steps of the Appian Way to
send a basket of flowers or a bottle of new scent to some girl that
has caught one's fancy. To go to the theatre, and see the new play,
though, to be sure, people write to me that there are no plays
nowadays.
Gleva: Plays?
Calpurnius: And in the evening with a party of girls in their bravest,
all without a care, to gallop in the cool along the Appian Way to
Baiae and crowned with roses and violets have supper by the sea. Oh,
to see one's women again--Lydia'll be getting on, by the way!--women
dressed, jewelled, smelling of violets. Oh, just for a little while!
By Castor and Pollux, I have deserved it.
Gleva (_who has been listening in grief_): Yes, you must go. (_She
goes to him and sits at his side._) I have a plan.